


We Are Not Ready

by audreycritter



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman/Batman (Comics)
Genre: Character Study, Cliffhanger, Friendship, Gen, Near Death Experience, Off-World, action in the background, bruce thinks about what's become of his life, clark thinks about his friendship with bruce, i am mildly obsessed with what they mean to each other and it's partly jeph loeb's fault, introspective, rambling and then PLOT, superbros, twist - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 18:08:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8763550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/pseuds/audreycritter
Summary: There are many things the world is not ready for and many things Bruce Wayne fights against.There are so many things outside of his control.Clark Kent knows the world might not have been ready for him and he was determined to prove their fears false.But he needs to be reminded of the control he wields.There are many, many things the world is not ready for-- and a world without Batman is probably one of them.





	1. Impermanence

I am not a good man.

_There is silence beneath the pale sky. Is it silence? No, it is deafness-- there are things that should be producing sound and they do not cross the barrier of sensory processing into my brain._

I know this, despite what Alfred tries to tell me. Good men do not do things I do, they do not act the way I act. I consider myself necessary, perhaps, but not good. I used to want to be, I think. I used to need to see myself that way. But I’ve had to let that go, over the years, because I cannot accept it anymore. I can accept that what I do is useful and even vital, but there are many things I’ve had to resign myself to relinquishing.

_His eyes are so blue. They’ve always been like that, clear and bright._

I know good men. I work with them, fight alongside them, but I am not one of them. There is a certain purity in motivation that I lack. My drive is muddled by chaotic emotion, and I do not deny this.

The world has changed so much around me.

It is the kind of world that needs men who are no longer good, I think.

Once, it was simple. But doesn’t everything start that way? And for all the grief it brought me, I wish to god we could go back to that simplicity.

Two people dead in an alley and a petty thief, mere bullets and a metal gun, graves that stay occupied.

_I never could blame him now. The universe is too complicated and boundless to put it on his shoulders. I wonder if he knows? I don’t know if I’ve ever told him, but I’m not positive it would even occur to him. He looks so frightened, sometimes._

My world changed that night but maybe it was a mercy to them. My parents were spared what the world would become, what the world was already becoming. We didn’t know or see it for years after, but it had already been set in motion, the changing tide.

Long had we suspected ourselves alone in the universe, and for many years before and after my parents’ deaths the only humans who knew for certain any different were a couple on a Kansas farm. They were just trying to do the right thing, they couldn’t have known that the sleek rocket cradled not just an alien infant but the dawn of a new age.

All I wanted to do was save Gotham. That in itself seemed a big enough task. But it was manageable. The last year or two of training felt like overkill, really. I felt over-prepared. The first time I went out in the cowl, it was so unsettling to the drug pushers I interrogated that I barely even needed to hit anyone.

I wasn’t what turned the tides, though. I don’t think of myself so highly. I was just there, working, thinking of myself as a good man stopping bad men from profiting off of Gotham’s suffering. I did hit people, eventually, but they were just men themselves. All I was up against was crime. It was simple. Frustrating but simple.

The whole world changed when he flew across the sky, cutting above city buildings. He’s always been alien, he’s always had the capacity to comprehend a world outside of this one. I don’t think he realizes how much he changed.

Madness is on the rise. I won’t say it’s a direct result, but I have reservations about dismissing the correlation. It is deeply unsettling to find we are not alone, to find we are not the ones with the upper hand.

When Dick came along, I took him with me because I understood the need to rage against something, to have a purpose. I saw the same darkness in him that I saw in myself and from the day I brought him home I was afraid I’d lose him to that darkness. I wanted him to have purpose, to learn to live with his grief through protecting others from the same.

I was also, at that point, completely confident in my ability to keep him safe. After all, I had training and experience and he had his own skills. He was a fast learner and the criminals we fought, at best, were loosely skilled in one field of combat if even that. We left a lot of people tied up.

But things changed.

_Gotham. That was all I wanted to save. I never meant to be part of the frontline against the assault of the universe, but we don’t always get to choose which battles we fight, despite clever adages. They brought the fight to me and with all my training, with all my resources, it would have been irresponsible to back down and leave it to metas. If humans were going to be worth saving, we needed to be part of the war. So it became more than Gotham. It became places like this one, off-world._

When Jason came along, I already could see the way things were going. There were things we fought that were the stuff of nightmares, the sort of terror previous generations could not have fathomed. That was the first time I had serious qualms about what I did and involving young men in the fight.

Ever since the atmosphere had been breached, the universe seemed to treat earth as open for traffic and conquest. We were not prepared. No one was.

When Jason died, everything changed again. There was a line that had been crossed that could not be uncrossed and that was the first time I came to terms with the fact that I was not a good man.

Good men did not allow the things I allowed.

They did not live the way I live.

It is ironic, I suppose, that the best man I know is an alien. It doesn’t bode well for earth that the best among us is not one of us, but it shouldn’t be surprising. We’re a miserable people and it’s no wonder that our boldest examples of purity or selflessness are foreigners here. It’s my deepest fear that one day we will corrupt him. We could never hold against the combination of our greed and his power. Lex knows it. It’s why he’s so jealous.

_His face has that way of frowning when he’s displeased, where it’s both open and disapproving at once. But I don’t see panic on his face that often. I wonder what’s wrong? He’d tell me if I asked, but I’m not good at asking._

Jason came back. So did I.

So did Clark, and Damian.

So many of us. The world has changed again.

I’m not certain of anything anymore if I cannot be certain of death. It troubles me, worries me, just as much as it used to and that is a frightening prospect. I do not fear it for myself and I only fear it in others as much as it causes suffering in its wake.

Was this what was brought to us, when we made contact with the rest of the universe? Was this what we brought on ourselves? The impermanence of death?

But I am not a good man.

I am surrounded by evil.

What does it mean, if we must suffer the deaths of those we love not just once but over and over? I have relived my parents’ deaths in memory the whole of my adult life, but they themselves only bore it once.

What does it mean if evil cannot be put to rest?

It is too soon for immortality. We are not ready.

I am afraid men want to be angels and will find themselves vampires. I already see it in Jason. Once, he was lonely and angry and broken by the crime around him. He was a symbol of what I wanted to save in Gotham. He wasn’t just a symbol; I loved him. I still do.

But he has made choices that, professionally, I cannot align myself with or even appear to align myself with, without endangering all the work I’ve done and the leniencies Jim Gordon has allowed us.

I suspect, though, that the further we get from his resurrection, the closer we are to a world at war with the world outside of it. We’ve already fought these battles once, but I fear they are the barest hint of what is to come.

And police will be nothing but bodies in the way.

The military will be minimally helpful at best.

One day, soon, we will need men who are not good. Maybe one day it will be necessary that I am more like Jason. Maybe if enough of us hold the line, we can absolve the next generation and they will be worthy of a world where death isn’t absolute.

I see it in Clark.

I am not a good man.

_Why is he yelling? Maybe I said something to upset him, but it’s not like him to argue like this unless something is very, very wrong._

He is a good man.

But he is not a man.

Maybe the ending to this story is that we don’t inherit earth. Maybe after everything, it really is that simple.

Maybe a species that produces men who kill strangers over strings of pearls and cash in wallets is not the kind of species that deserves to stay here.

_Something is very, very wrong._

Still, I will fight. I will fight to save Gotham because there is nothing else I know how to do. I will fight at home and abroad and beyond our own skies because I have prepared myself and it would be a waste to not use it.

I am not a good man.

But at least I have a reason.

And if I can live with that, maybe other men after me will have a world where they can be good.

Or I’ll help hasten the end and it won’t matter anyway.

I suspect the latter, but I like to err on the side of caution in such cases. It makes the final blow easier to take. It is easier when it is less surprising, when it doesn’t catch one so off-guard.

The final blow.

I have no idea what the hell is going on.

I just wanted to save Gotham.

That’s what I told myself.

But no, it wasn’t Gotham.

I just wanted to fight.

I think my chest hurts.

I have no idea where I am.

_Fight._

I’m off-world. I remember.

Clark looks so mad.

No. Not mad. Upset.

Dying seems not worth the effort when it’s not going to last, and I’m so tired, I don’t want to keep repeating the same events. Humans weren’t meant for this sort of thing.

_Fight._

I am not a good man. Is this the consequence? Is this the price for my failure? Corrupt immortality is worse than almost anything; I only have to look to Ra’s and what he’s done to Talia and Damian to see that.

So, do I fight?

_Fight._

I am not a good man.

I do not do what others want or expect.

But I do it because someone has to.

Because if the world is going to be torn to pieces by monsters and alien gods, there should at least be a man fighting alongside our defenders, even if he isn’t a good man. We should not give up so easily that we leave the battles to others.

And if youth fight alongside me, it is only because other men were not willing. It is a deep and damning mark against me that I allow it, that I need them, but perhaps it’s a mark against all of us, that we leave the fight to outsiders and children.

Clark’s eyes are so blue even when he’s crying.

Maybe especially when he’s crying.

Have I ever seen him cry before?

I can’t remember.

I can’t.

_Fight._

_I think I’m dying._

_**BOOM** _


	2. Arbitration

He is the best man I know.

_Cyborg, you have to get us out of here now!_

He doesn’t believe it. I’ve tried telling him, but it makes him so uncomfortable that I’ve given up. He won’t let himself accept a version of the story where he’s the good guy. I think at best, he seems himself as a violent neutral.

An arbitrator.

He is dying.

The world still needs him. He died for it once, or experienced a kind of death, anyway. He went out with a gun in his hand of all things. There’s some symbolism there, I’m sure of it, but I haven’t gotten it down on paper in a way that does it honor.

I’ll keep trying.

_No, not the Tower! Gotham! Find Leslie Thompkins!_

You know what brought him back? It wasn’t love. Or, if it was, it was a deeply conceptual love. It wasn’t Tim who brought him back, it wasn’t the desire for family or a home, but it was Tim who told us how.

_No, it has to be Gotham! He needs a doctor!_

“Gotham needs you.”

That’s what we told him. That’s what broke through.

And he thinks I’m the idealist.

I need him.

I love Lois.

But I need him.

Ma told me once that I was a symbol of hope. I gave people something to believe in, something to look up to. Lois has said the same. And it’s probably true; I know some pretty smart women.

But Bruce saw what I could be.

A harbinger of death.

He doesn’t think I understand how much earth has changed, but I do. I might be from another place but I grew up a boy here just like him. I know what the news used to look like and what it looks like now. I think sometimes I see it more starkly, to be honest, because I grew up with Smallville news and Wichita news, not Gotham news. My parents rarely kept the national stuff on, only around election seasons.

And I know part of that change was me.

Maybe I didn’t start it-- I mean, I didn’t ask to be sent from Krypton-- but I made a choice that was action instead of silence. I could have remained hidden and I didn’t. I know I played my part.

I am dangerous.

I live with that every day.

I want nothing more than to do good, to save and serve and protect. Earth is my home. These are my people. I am from another world and in another life, things could have been different, but this is what I have and earth is all I know.

But they are so fragile compared to me.

_I don’t care how close! I’ll fly him the rest of the way, just move us now!_

I need him to remind me.

I love being a symbol of hope, like my Ma sees. I love being a hero, the way I am in Lois’ eyes. I love being a good son, making my Pa proud. I love life on this planet.

And I am so dangerous.

He never lets me forget.

He is my best friend, because he never lies to me about this one crucial detail: if someone could turn or control me, if I lost myself, it could be the end of everything we both know and love.

I need someone that remembers.

Because sometimes I want to forget.

_**BOOM** _

He is not normal, either, and maybe that’s why we get along. He sees and judges with such astute eyes when the details are in front of him. And I can remind him that details aren’t the only thing that matters.

Gotham needs him, but Tim came for him.

_No, I see the clinic. She’s there. It’s not too late, why the hell would you ask that?_

Tim came for him because Tim and I agree on something many other people do not:

He is the best man we know.

Deeply flawed, to be certain, but who isn’t?

There is a problem in the world, one I struggle against every day. I fight alongside metas and aliens and demigods. We all have one reason or another to want to protect this little pocket of the galaxy. Some of them started as human and aren’t anymore, but they’re closer than me.

Still. Many of us were pushed into this work because of what we could do; it seemed irresponsible to waste it.

But Bruce was the one who saw the root of evil and decided to do something about it without the burden of special abilities. Seven billion people on the planet and none of them match his commitment to mission, to sheer will power.

He is afraid of what I could do if I went rogue.

It doesn’t matter what he could do if he went rogue because he never will. That’s the thing: the rest of us knew we could do something and had to pick a side. But Bruce has always been firmly aligned, from the very beginning. It’s not in him to know another side, even if he fears he might find himself there someday. I know he won’t.

_Pulse is rapid. Get out of my way unless you’re helping. He’s lost too much blood._

The world isn’t ready to lose him.

I’m not ready to lose him.

You’d think, as different as we are, that we’d never get along. I know it baffles the League sometimes. I know even Lois doesn’t always understand what we see in each other.

But we are both strangers in this homeland. There will always be something separating us from the average experience and that is a lonely place to be. And more than anyone, I think, he understands my grief-- even if Crime Alley stands, we both have worlds we cannot return to.

The earth is so noisy, I appreciate his silence. And his inner control drowns out everything except ancillary noises so well that I think he needs me to sever that silence sometimes.

When I waver, when I wonder if I could put the cape aside and duck my head down and blend in, his commitment challenges me.

“Dead or dying,” he once told me would be the only way he’d quit, when I asked him, after Damian arrived.

_Somebody should probably call Alfred. I’ve done all I can._

He has always been determined, only retreating in the face of concrete facts. He is willing to push the envelope and defy the odds until it is a hard and fast truth that stops him.

And the thing that scares me now is that when he was on his back in that alien field, his gut split in a gaping, curved and pulsing wound, he was looking at me the whole time I was bent over him trying to hold him together.

He didn’t look sad or startled or even in pain.

He just looked accepting.

He had somehow already, in the time it took me to realize I should use my cape to press against the deep gash, weighed the facts and accepted the conclusion.

The best arbitrators are the ones who see so clearly that they aren’t even partial to themselves. And he is right about so many things: he is not a good man, not in the classical sense of the word. But he is the best man I know.

My only hope now is that he is, as always, his deepest blind spot and that somewhere in him he will fight a losing battle and somehow win, as he often does.

_Master Kent, it may be wise to clean oneself up. I will inform you if anything changes._

There is blood on my hands.

I know there are so many things I am responsible for, so many ways I have drawn chaos and pain to earth.

I wash his blood off my skin, my skin that never cares how hot the water runs, and I know if he dies I do not know what I will do.

Should I hang up the cape for good, if he isn’t there to remind me of what I could be? If he isn’t there to caution me against the danger of absolute power? I see it and I know what he sees, why he keeps Kryptonite in that vault. It offended Diana, but I understand.

So many would follow me regardless of the path I led them down.

I have no desire to rule as a tyrant but it would be so easy.

Even if they could stop me, I could raze half the earth to the ground before they did.

I do not want to imagine what would need to happen for that to be a possibility. I do not want to, but he has always insisted on it, and it keeps me watchful. It keeps me prepared. I’m not sure how many potential crises he’s averted just by insisting that I stop and consider the long-term consequences of actions and feelings that seemed well-intentioned in the moment.

Would I be too great a threat to the world without him?

The world is not ready.

Should I even risk it?

And aside from that, I don’t want to.

I am not ready.

I am an alien, I am not from this earth. But it is my home. I am just a Kansas farm boy, he is just my best friend. It’s really that simple.

I am not ready.

_Clark? Clark, Alfred wanted me to find you. Leslie said he’s stabilizing. Somehow._

Bruce sees more than anyone, he always has, that being Atlas with the world on my back is a burden and rarely a light one. I shoulder a million, a hundred million, expectations and dreams, and it is not in my nature to shrug it off but it would be so, so easy if I wasn’t careful. He balances me.

He is an arbitrator and he sees so keenly what I could be and what I am.

He does not let me forget.

I am a symbol of hope.

I am the optimist.

He is the best man I know.

_Of course he is. It’s Bruce._


End file.
